


Dormancy

by panicatthesipsco



Series: Bare-root [2]
Category: The Yogscast
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Anger, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Reckless Behavior, spriggan smiffy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-24
Updated: 2015-02-24
Packaged: 2018-03-15 00:00:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3430391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/panicatthesipsco/pseuds/panicatthesipsco
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Smiffy has been guardian of his forest for over a thousand years. Just because the humans are getting smarter doesn't mean he isn't either, and he'll do everything in his power to protect his woods.</p><p>(To members of the Yogscast: don't read any of my fics on stream. Don't link, repost, or reference on any other social media or website.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dormancy

**Author's Note:**

> _dormancy: a period in an organism's life cycle when growth and development are temporarily slowed or stopped._
> 
> warnings for: self-harm (depending on how you look at it), and descriptions of blood and minor body horror (fingernail tearing).

Alsmiffy had always existed, he was sure of it. He knew, even before he had a form, that, simply, he _was_. Before he had taken embodied home in bark, he had been in the dirt, and in the tree roots, and in the dust motes in the sunlight that filtered to the forest floor. The birds sang to him until winter came, and then the cold snowy wind whistled lullabies as it was caught and snatched at by his branches. This was his forest. It had been his since the very first sapling sprouted. He claimed it as his own, and had curled the dirt safe around it and murmured it encouragement as it grew.

The mushrooms scattered across the woods were his eyes, a tangled web of a joined chorus, always willing to sing with him as he used their wide spread to keep an eye on things. The trees were his hands, waiting for the command of the breeze to tangle in intruder's clothing. Though the wind wasn't part of him, he considered it a part of his power. Many times he had expanded his reach simply by asking the wind to press seeds into animals' furs as the creatures moved about the woods. And though he wasn't particularly sentimental, he was aware of the sun's impact on his forest's life, and if trees had any use for such language, he could've equated it to a mother.

While he had always existed, he had never really felt what happened until it did. He felt it as each tree on the outer edges were cut down. It was an agonizing pain. He had no physical form, but he felt the losses as if chunks of him were torn from his chest, hacked at by loud, angry snarling chains. 

He had felt trees die before, old things that had already begun to rot, deadfall into the river that cut through his territory. He had felt trees struck by lightning, and had even experienced a small forest fire that left the weight of soot across him for months on end, choking him with each gust of wind. But the two-legged creatures that seemed to always wander into his territory had staked their claim on the outer edges. They cut through the outer oaks and maples (they were too young, just children), cutting at his stray branches with ease every time he pressed too close. They moved out of the way when he leaned his cut trees to fall on top of the creatures.

From sunrise to sunset, they worked, and as the night fell they began to pack up and leave. But their large, loud machinery was left behind, silent in the night.

After all the pain, after all the sheer terror of spending what felt like an eternity waiting for the next blow, Smiffy could finally rest. He was dazed, the numb ache of his missing forest settling around him. 

And then he decided to do something to protect them.

He hadn't exactly known what he was doing. He simply willed his power to somehow be able to defend himself, and then he tangibly _was._

He had spent his entire existence dwelling as the sentience of the forest, but now everything was silent. His vision was narrowed, and while he knew where he was, he didn't really see. He blinked blearily at his surroundings, before realizing he had blinked.

Smiffy knew how the creatures with legs functioned; he had spent plenty of time keeping an eye on them, figuring out how to spread his seeds or who to smack with a branch. They had eyes, and fleshy branches that could bend like rubber, and fur.

He struggled for a moment to remember how he had done it, but then it happened again. His vision blackened for just a split second.

He turned his vision downward, and bright light spread across a tree--only, the tree was divided into two trunks that merged into one the higher they stretched up. He tried to reach out his consciousness, on habit, to connect with the two trees, and instead found himself buckling forward as he toppled to the ground.

With his vision pressed to the dirt, an entirely different ache spreading across himself, he realized he had become a hybrid tree/two-legged creature.

He was an expert on hybrids. He loved encouraging the flowers across his forest floor to grow together, to share roots. He had repaired his trees many a time using the branches of others. 

He could definitely work with this.

It only took him an hour to master standing and walking, and he was very proud of himself. He began to maneuver his way to the machinery. Even if he hadn't had glowing vision, he would've navigated perfectly to the outer edge of the forest. The forest was his true body, and he knew every centimeter of it.

He abruptly stopped as he reached the edge. His eyes swept across the ground, where stumps and branches were the only remainder of his trees.

He paused a moment in silence. Then, fast as the wind, he lurched towards the machinery, and reached out to claw at the panels and doors. He pulled his hands back and hissed, the same whistling sound of branches cutting through wind, as the branches of his fingers snapped. He willed them to grow back, and glared at them as he watched their slow healing.

He was frustrated. He wanted to break the two-legged-creatures' toys, but even unmanned, they were hurting him. He would have to play by their rules.

As simple as he had inhabited his tree form, he took on the shape of the creatures who had harmed his forest. He stared down at the hands before him. His previous branches had already somewhat formed hands, but up close, the original product looked terribly wrong. The fleshy fingers were much too short, and they all formed uniform shapes. The meatier parts of them were flat, more akin to leaves than bark.

He flexed his fingers, but stopped as his eyes began to sting. Without deciding to, his eyes blinked on their own. He felt the lower part of his face twist into a snarl, the top bit smushing down, and his vision narrowed. He was less certain, now, that he knew all there was to know about legged creatures.

He looked back up at the machinery in front of him, his face relaxing, and he subconsciously ran his fingers through the fur across the top of his head. Petals caught under his fingernails, and he pulled his hands back to examine them before gasping.

Of course--he had hands. He could use them.

He reached forward and pried at the panel he had watched humans open when they wanted inside the machine. He huffed as it stayed still, and on impulse, smashed his arm into the clear bit of the door. He had done this before with branches, when an abandoned creature machine had been left in a clearing at the edge of his woods, but he was unprepared for the pain of it when the glass bits embedded in his flesh instead of bark. He hissed again, and his vision went blurry, but he avoided the glass that still clung to the edges of the panel in favor of finding the handle inside.

With a simple pull, the door swung open, and with his uninjured hand he rubbed away the water at the corners of his eyes before peering inside.

There was many strange bits and things inside. He tugged at a few, but they either remained in place or moved uselessly, nothing happening with their movement. 

He paused, frozen in his movements, as he heard some sort of warbling animal in the forest behind him. It sounded like the whine of a wolf, but the tone was wrong. It raised in the wrong places, and cracked. He glanced behind him to try to identify the creature, but he saw nothing with his limited range of vision. 

His eyes landed on the tree stumps spread across the ground, and something hot and fast spread through him. With a hoarse shout, he turned back to machinery and slammed his fists into it. Filled with white-hot energy, he hit and tore and pulled at anything his hands could reach.

Eventually, the pain in his hands was more overwhelming than the pain in his chest, and he collapsed to a sitting position on the ground. He looked at the grass around him and saw bits of metal and colored plastic he had torn apart, littering the ground. He laid down and bitterly hoped the creatures would learn from their mistakes and pick up the mess.

He stared up at the sky as his chest stopped heaving. He held the fleshy hands up and saw a red liquid-- _blood_ \--dripping down his arms. The hard bits that grew at the tips of each finger were torn and bleeding, and the flat bits of flesh were red and swollen.

His vision blurred again and his eyes stung, and a choked sound spilled across his lips as he mourned his forest. Those trees had been young, so much younger than the trees at the heart of his forest. These had been babies, pressed into the dirt around only fifteen springs ago.

He rested for the rest of the night. He wasn't aware of when he had slipped back into the forest consciousness, but it settled around him like a warm cocoon. As his mourning bled into the starting day, he became aware of the creatures' presence again. As if he had never left the core of the forest, he reached out to the trees at the edge and watched as the humans fumed and huffed and threw down the bits of fabric they wore on their hands. They saw his damage.

It looked much less substantial from his distance, the aftermath being only the broken glass and the inside battered and torn. The strange form he had taken seemed to have disappeared. Only a patch of poppies remained where he had lain. He had no idea how much his damage would prevent them, but he was glad to see their aggression.

More of the creatures showed up, with cars that flashed red and blue lights. They rubbed cotton over the remnants of his blood, and stretched a yellow strip of plastic around the area. Soon, most of the creatures left.

At least for the day, his forest would be safe.

-*-

The creatures eventually gave up. Smiffy was sure to keep an eye on them as the year passed, but soon they took their machinery and left. The yellow strip was taken down.

They had left half of the mess of metal he had pulled from their machine, but he forgave it in light of their retreat.

Many more seasons passed after that, and he had managed to plant a few more trees in the graveyard of stumps. He tried to encourage the new trees to take in the old wood.

Different two-legged creatures showed up, in small groups, sometimes building small fires and staying the night. They all seemed tense and restless, as if waiting for something. For a while, Smiffy enjoyed willing the wind to blow his branches against their makeshift shelter, pulling sharp frightened sounds from the creatures, but he grew bored.

They contained their fires, and they arrived with only bags on their backs and lights in their hands. He eventually left the new groups alone when they arrived, as he had done with two-legged creatures before they tore down his trees. These small pairs and groups seemed harmless, and soon he focused his sight on other areas of the forest; meadows with clusters of flowers he could encourage to blossom, furs of foxes he could press bush seeds into, and the not-quite-human creature that would pull itself onto the shore of the forest river and sunbathe.

While he still didn't enjoy the human creatures' presence at the edge of his forest, especially in that area that had lost so much, he tolerated them. He hoped they would let his forest exist in peace, and that he wouldn't ever have to resort to such drastic measures of that two-legged form ever again.

Naturally, of course, peace was never an option.

**Author's Note:**

> if you draw any fanart, id love to see! tag it dannyavidammitross on tumblr ♡


End file.
